Long, long ago, in the distant past of 2009, I wrote a short post about the debut album from Béatrice Martin as Cœur de pirate and I assure you reader, even today the songs from that album are special. I have a kind of nostalgia about not just those songs and that recent-yet-not-recent time but the way hearing those songs felt then, the echoes they throw from then to now. There are songs and albums and artists that are your favorites and you would call them your favorites perhaps out of careful consideration or soul-searching and they come easily to mind when someone asks you to name them. I don’t think of Cœur de pirate this way, though I adore a wide and ever-widening swath of her output. There’s a different kind of song or album or artist, no less critical but often less obvious, that anchor your taste; foundational components of the ethereal equations that describe the dynamics of a system that together encompasses “what you like”. Comme des enfants is that, for me. Cœur de pirate the album and artist is that, for me. There are other piano-heavy artists, there are other non-English vocalists, even the occasional chanson française, the elements that make up the sound are not themselves unique within my experience, but the combination of Cœur de pirate in that place, in that time, staked a position that remains just as apparent to me now as ever. When I hear it, I see this spot where Cœur de pirate landed and I know that’s where I am again.
Continuing a small but proud tradition in my music library of artists that sing in languages I do not speak, Cœur de pirate has captured my heart without saying a word (that I understand). Beautiful, simple arrangements? Check. Delicate vocal stylings? Check. Double-scoop of piano? Check. Let the swooning commence. Perhaps not knowing, or at least having only a vague idea, is part of the magic for me, but I can’t imagine music this good, and it is that good, comes with anything short of brilliant lyrics. I think I can easily sum up my thoughts about Cœur de pirate in a way that transcends language barriers, a universal internet symbol of my affection.